


a sweet heart in the dark to call my own

by redbrunja, roadhymns



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Humor, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-01-15 06:42:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrunja/pseuds/redbrunja, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadhymns/pseuds/roadhymns
Summary: "You want to serve the motherland, don't you, Kuryakin? Wipe some of the shame from your family name."Illya Kuryakin died in 1959.





	1. death does not take the old but the ripe

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!

Illya stood at attention.

Oleg looked across his desk, smoke curling up from the cigarette between his lips. 

“Sit,” he ordered, pointing at the chair across from him. Illya obeyed.

Oleg took a long drag, and then snuffed out his cigarette, before rising. He walked to Illya, slowly, feet heavy against the floor.

“They tell me you have potential. That you could be our best.”

“Thank you, comrade,” Illya said after a moment.

"You want to serve the motherland, don't you, Kuryakin? Wipe some of the shame from your family name." Oleg’s eyes were dark, flinty.

“I do,” Illya said, serious, intent.

Oleg nodded. “Take off your tie, unbutton your shirt.” He was standing very close.

Reluctantly, Illya obeyed, pulling his tie from around his neck, shoving it into a pocket. He unbuttoned three of the buttons on his dress shirt, and then Oleg’s hand was heavy on his shoulder, nails biting through his shirt, into his skin. Oleg’s other hand grabbed Illya by the hair, wrenching his head to the side. 

Illya attempted to rise, to shove Oleg back, but the man was strong, strong enough to force Illya to stay seated.

Oleg smiled, fangs visible behind his thin lips.

That was how Illya Kuryakin died.

* * *

**** Solo picked up the photo of her father. His eyes unfocused for a moment before he set it back down on the desk.

“No need to play coy, fräulein,” Solo said, looking directly at her, smug, certain, like he could see inside her ribcage to all the secrets she kept hidden behind her heart. “We both know you’d do anything to slip under the Iron Curtain and have the chance to tell your father exactly what you think of him.” 

Gaby felt a chill run down her spine. She might be a novice at spycraft but she knew enough to know that was a reckless opening gambit. Waverly, who’d recruited her with almost that exact same argument, had taken weeks to work around to that point. He hadn’t sauntered in, thrown her anger at her father in her teeth, and expected that to work.

But of course, for several reasons, it did.

”Let’s take a drive,” Solo directed.

* * *

The KGB agent swung his Trabant into a handle-brake turn, trying to force her to a stop. Gaby wasn’t having it. She spun her car into a pirouette first, twirling away. 

And then - Gaby felt a flash, something like inspiration, the same sensation as when she was elbow-deep in an engine and knew just how to fix it.

She let the side of her Wartburg kiss the KGB agent’s vehicle, rocking both of their cars, forcing his away and -

In the rearview mirror, as Gaby sped away, she saw the entire engine drop out of his car, sparks pluming up.

Gaby clicked her tongue. Sloppy maintenance would cause a machine to fail just when it was most needed.

**“** Lovely work,” Solo said admiringly. “But I’m afraid you didn’t quite solve our little soviet problem.”

Gaby looked in the mirror, to see the russian agent chasing after them on foot, and gaining.

Gaby pressed the gas pedal flat against the floorboard.

He kept gaining.

* * *

Gaby danced, leading him to the right and then to the left. He followed, easy, so easy she could almost forget how dangerous he was. There was only the unnatural coldness of his hands to remind her.

She brought one of his hands to his face, delight bubbling up at the smack. She couldn’t resist doing it a second time.

He jerked back, fangs flashing in the low night.

“Don’t make me bite you,” he snarled.

Gaby felt a flash of - fear and anger both, twined so tightly together she couldn’t even tell them apart - of course he wanted to bite her, he was a vampire, he was a russian - Gaby couldn’t explain what she did, but one moment Illya was looming over her, and the next he was on the floor, on his knees, pressing his hands against his head.

She felt - so powerful, she could destroy him, she had no doubt about that - 

and then she collapsed against the end of the bed, clinging to the baseboard to keep her feet. She was half-blind from a headache and she felt her nose begin bleeding, blood dripping across her lips.

She'd burned the alcohol out of her blood and suddenly clear-headed, Gaby  _ cannot believe  _ she was stupid enough to  _ taunt  _ a  _ vampire. _

She looked over at Illya, still on his knees, only now he was searching through his suitcase. He pulled out… a handkerchief?

Numbly, Gaby took it. She wiped the blood off of her face and then held it to her nose, pinching her nostril shut. The taste of copper filled her mouth.

Illya refused to meet her eyes.

(He was so ashamed. Threatening the woman he was supposed to protect. A woman with valuable powers he forced her waste on him. He’d made her bleed - Illya tries not to think about that, not to taste the sweet scent of her blood in the air. If he gave her a taste of his blood, she'd be healed - and pliant, and wanting- and he could lick her lips and chin clean, could sink his teeth into her and make her bleed again, make her moan for him...) 

“What happened?” Gaby asked. “How did I do that?” She realized, a beat too late, what a bad ploy revealing her ignorance is.

Illya shook his head, like a dog tossing off water.

“Because-” He started in English and then said a few things in Russian.

When Gaby continued to stare at him blankly he offered, “das hexenwerk?”

Gaby scoffed.

Illya continued to look at her. It was clear he wasn’t joking.

She lifted her chin to argue about the existence of magic, realized she was about to do so with a creature of the night, and went to go wash her face instead.

Illya stood awkwardly behind her while she did, the bathroom door open. It still smelled like chemicals from when he had converted it into an impromptu dark room.

She straightened, toweling off her face. She met Illya’s eyes in the mirror. He looked… almost proud?

“That is a prized skill. Rare. Very strong talent for a strong woman.”

He nodded awkwardly at her and then sent back to his chess board.

Gaby crawled into bed. She wondered if Waverley suspected that she could hurt vampires like that. Probably. Knowing that Illya couldn’t drag her back across the Iron Curtain was distantly comforting, she supposed, but not quite as comforting as the ability to hurt millionaire nazis would be.

* * *

_ “Illya, he has Gaby in the garage, he’s-” _

* * *

The jeep refused to start with an angry snarl of metal against metal. When Gaby yanked, the bar she was chained to popped free and the handcuffs slithered off her wrists. Alexander’s gun jammed and none of it mattered, because he caught her on the stairs leading up out of the garage and threw her back down.

She heard gunfire in the distance. But Alexander had decided that he cared more about making sure that she died with him than escape. He rained blows down on her, and no no matter how she tried to claw at him, or shield herself, or squirm away, she couldn’t stop him.

There was an angry roar and Illya leapt down, ripping Alexander away from her. Illya’s fangs were bared, his eyes burning blue, and he tore Alexander to pieces, as easily as if he was tearing apart a paper doll.

Blood splashed on Gaby like warm rain as she watched, her arms still over her head.

And then Illya was cradling her, pulling her into his lap. She couldn’t help making a gasping moan, things deep inside her grinding against each other, the pain stealing her breath.

“Sh, sh,” Illya comforted, and then bit into his own wrist, before pressing it against her mouth. His blood tasted like copper and electricity, and before it, Gaby’s pain pulled away like the withdrawing tide.

“I told you I’d be close by,” he said, and brushed her bloody bangs back off her forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: For clarity, Illya is a vampire. Gaby is a witch with a particular gift with metal/mechanics. I'm going to steal from TVD and say that witches had a natural defense against vampires and can cause them pain with their magic/mind and from True Blood that a vampire’s blood has healing/aphrodisiac effects. (Also Gaby did NOT become a vampire at the end of this chapter because she a.) didn’t die and b. Illya didn’t drink HER blood.)
> 
> Solo can sense an object's history if he touches it. Which is a HELLA useful skill for a spy but pretty fucking useless offensively.


	2. a vampire in tennis whites

Illya could admit, that if the goal of the mission is to lure a pair of siblings who are rich with black market money and had a prosperous, illegal weapons trading business into a partnership, Solo was the better choice of man to be on Gaby’s arm.

But he didn't have to enjoy it.

Illya was ensconced in the surveillance van, prepared to wait for hours, when Gaby’s jaguar zoomed up the drive and came to a dramatic halt in front of a resort just outside of Monte Carlo.

Gaby and Solo entered the lobby laughing, arm in arm, and caught the attention of the Barbet siblings, just as planned. 

...And then Mignonne Barbet stormed across the lobby and slapped Solo across the face.

“Bastard! Thief!” she screamed and the mission plan went completely sideways.

“What?” Gaby said, pulling away from Solo.

“This man stole 50 thousands dollars worth of my jewelry! Thought you’d never see me again, didn’t you Devaney? Think twice! Security!”

Gaby burst into theatrical tears.

* * *

“_How_ could you _fail_ to inform us that you were _compromised!_” Illya snarled, his knees bumping into Solo’s in the tight confines of the van.

Solo straightened his cuffs, smoothed back his hair. 

Illya wanted to throttle him.

“An unavoidable mistake,” he said smoothly. “At our last meeting, Mignonne was a brunette, and during our night together, I… did not catch her name.”

Illya’s fangs descended, cut at his bottom gums.

“Because of your carelessness, Gaby now has to handle the Barbets alone.”

“Peril, do you think I haven’t already worked out how to slip you into the resort and right in front of our Gaby and her new friends?”

For one second, Illya thought that he might be expected to swoop in as another rich, attention grabbing vacationer. Would Gaby play that she was immediately drawn to him, or would he act as enchanted with her as he really is, with Gaby pretending to succumb to his charms?

Solo opened the van door. “Come on now, we’ll need to sneak around the back. I think the tennis instructor would be a perfect afternoon snack for you.”

* * *

It was a miserable week.

While he could handle sunlight, it was exhausting, inexorably whetting his hunger. He had to speak with entitled guests all day. Solo whined over the comms about suffering from boredom, and it was dicey, sneaking animal blood to Illya, even with Solo’s skills. He was closer to Gaby, with a plausible reason to be at the resort, but Gaby was still often alone, easing her way into the Barbets good graces.

“You need to sneak into my room tonight,” Gaby told him during their daily tennis lesson. Illya froze. 

“Be sure to be obvious about it,” she continued. “If Mignonne thinks we’re having an affair, it will give you an excuse to socialize with us and spend more time in my rooms.”

“Good plan,” Illya managed, and that evening, he blatantly slunk through the hotel’s corridors, exactly where a member of the daytime staff had no business being.

When Gaby opened the door, she was wearing the white and green dress he’d bought her for their mission in Rome, her feet bare.

Gaby looked him up and down, clearly not pleased with what she was seeing.

“While you’re here,” she said, “you’re going to drink some of my blood.”

Illya jerked back.

“ _ Net, _ ” he protested. “I would never-”

“You need it,” Gaby said bluntly. 

Illya moved towards the door and Gaby caught his wrist. He could pull away, he should, but he didn’t.

Unable to meet her eyes, he admitted, “I’ve never ...fed from someone without killing them.”

“You will this time,” Gaby said firmly. “If you start to take too much, I’ll stop you.”

And she could, and Illya’s head hurt so much, and he’s weaker than he’s ever been before, except for that time Oleg locked him in a solitary cell for six months…. and  _ for the mission _ he should be at his best….

So he followed Gaby when she led him into the bathroom.

“I think the femoral artery would be best,” she said, tugging up her skirt and sitting on the counter. “Easiest to hide.”

(Her underwear was white and lacy.) (She was going to wrinkle that skirt horribly.) (Illya had never bit anyone there.) (He’d never touched a woman there.) (He knew exactly where her femoral artery was, knew exactly where he should bite.)

He folded himself to his knees.

“I will try-” he started, before realizing that there is no way to do this without hurting her.

“You will stop me, yes?” he asked. “Before I-”

Gaby nodded seriously.

He sunk his teeth into her thigh.

She made a sound - just a little sound - and he forced himself to pull back.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, the scent of her blood filling his head like red mist. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shhhh,” she said, tangling her fingers in his hair, guiding his mouth back to her.

He bit into her again. Blood had never tasted this good, not even when he’d been weak and starving and ripped into the first man they threw into the cell with him. He’d never felt - so immediately steady, so in true. He’d never had someone stroke his hair while he fed before.

He withdrew his fangs. There were two deep punctures high on her thigh. He licked the blood away, teased the wounds with the tip of his tongue.

Gaby was breathing hard, head thrown back, fingers tight in his hair.

“Told you,” Gaby said, voice rough. She's all he could smell, her blood, her arousal. He could hear the beat of her blood, the rush of air through her lungs.

He turned his head, nuzzled against her underthings. The fabric was damp. Gaby opened her legs wider.

“Please,” she said, “Illya, please.”

A sharp tug and her lingerie no longer provided a barrier to his mouth.

Illya knew the anatomy, and it was easier than overheard locker room talk would’ve lead him to believe to find her clitoris. She made the most glorious sounds when he licked and sucked at her, said his name in the most wonderful way.

She wanted him to lick the length of her cunt; he did. She wanted him to press a finger into her; he did. She was hotter and tighter than he imagined. She told him to add another. He slipped a second finger into her and she spasmed around him with a cry, flooding his mouth with her slick sweetness.

She trembled for a moment, head thrown back, and then she tugged at his shirt, motioning for him to stand.

“I want all of you,” she panted, tugging at his belt, the zip of his trousers. Didn’t she know she already had it?

He pulled his shirt off, tossed it aside, followed Gaby’s lead when she wrapped her legs around his waist and guided him into her.

He’d thought the pleasure of his fingers inside her was intense. It was nothing compared to her slick, tight heat around his cock.

She was louder, this time, and wilder, her hands raking his shoulder as he dug his fingers into the flesh of her hips and fucked into her.

Over her shoulder, he could see his face in the mirror, his lips slick with her, his fangs white and gleaming. He looked like the monster he was but Gaby, Gaby moved against him fearlessly, pulled at his hair and swore at him and climaxed again. He couldn't smell anything but sex and and lust Gaby and Gaby’s magic, the heady, perfect scent of her unmarred by fear.

Illya groaned as he orgasmed, eyes tightly closed, knowing he must look grotesque, but Gaby just laughed brightly and then kissed him, slipping her tongue between his fangs. When he went to pull away, to catch a breath he didn’t need, Gaby pressed her tongue against one incisor, made the taste of her blood bloom in his mouth. He chased the taste, licked into her mouth greedily, forced her head back, his hand at the back of her neck.

He hadn’t even slipped out of her and he was growing hard again.

“Oh!” went Gaby. And then, “ooooooh,” slower, unsteady. She shifted her hips to take him deeper.

Gaby bit his bottom lip, hard enough to draw  _ his _ blood this time.

She felt electric in his arms, and for one second he dimly worried that someone will be able to tell, some sensitive would feel her magic through the very walls.

“I want you to fuck me in a bed this time,” Gaby said, voice throaty, and everything but obeying her vanished from Illya’s mind.

* * *

The next morning Gaby breakfasted with Mignonne, while Illya listened over the comms.

“You certainly look… invigorated,” the Mignonne commented.

“Yes, I had a ….private lesson with the tennis instructor last night,” Gaby said coyly.

“And?” 

“I taught him a thing or two,” Gaby said, all smug satisfaction.

The women laughed.

“I must say… his stamina and talent is… commendable,” Gaby continued and Mignonne pressed her for further details.

Across the building, Illya fumbled with the communicator.

“I am so glad to hear it,” Mignonne said as Gaby finished her story. “But there is something I else I wanted to discuss with you. A… business opportunity.”

“Oh?” Gaby said, guilelessly.

Six weeks later the Barbet's warehouses were seized and distribution routes broken by a several different law enforcement agencies, and the siblings found themselves inside a Parisian prison.


	3. unexpected perks of an undead boytoy

Havanna was mercilessly hot and full of waiting.

It was one thing during the day when Gaby had work to focus on. Even trailing a housewife to the market and back allowed her to block her discomfort from her mind.

At night, technically off duty, there was nothing to distract her from the sweat that pebbled her skin and dripped, itchingly slow, down her body.

Cuba's official radio station had slightly better music than East Germany's but that was a low bar.

It went without saying that their hotel room did not have air conditioning. During the thick, tropical night, there was nothing else for Gaby to do but have Illya lie on the floor, and spread herself across his back.

He was cooler than even the refrigerator to the touch, and had no need to sweat.

Illya had yet to lodge any complaints about Gaby stretching herself across his back, like a cat who craved darkness instead of sunlight.

Gaby almost managed to fall asleep, her cheek pressed against one of Illya's shoulderblades, before she warmed his body with hers to the point that their skin was sticking together.

She gave a petulant moan and straddled him, her knees on the rough carpet. "Roll over," she ordered, and then laid herself across his cool chest, tucking her head under his chin and closing her eyes.

Illya went to stroke her back.

"It's too hot for touching," Gaby whined. She heard the laugh caught in Illya's chest but he obediently lowered his hands.


	4. the care and keeping of your KGB vampire boytoy

MI6 wanted Agent Teller in Vienna, the Kremlin wanted Kuryakin in Vienna, and Waverly pretended that he had no idea that both of his agents were being sent to the same place.

In the three weeks since Gaby and Illya flew out of Heathrow on separate airlines, they'd actually seen quite a lot of each other. They passed each other on the streets, attended the same parties (although they did not often both attend as _invited_ guests), talked to many of the same people.

Last night, Illya circled around the party as a server and Gaby had called him over to her table several times to refill her champagne glass, the slit of her dress riding higher each time he came by.

It was no surprise to wake tonight to Illya’s cool hands on her hips, his hot mouth on her cunt. She felt the press of his fangs, his lips and tongue soft and slick.

Gaby gasped, opened her legs wider.

"Hello, stranger," she purred and Illya nipped her inner thigh in pique.

Illya had slipped off her pajama pants but left her top. She tugged her top off one shoulder, baring a breast. She rolled her thumb across her nipple while Illya serviced her. She can feel his intensity, his urgency, and it ramped her pleasure up fast, until she rocked against his mouth with her first orgasm.

It felt like the best dream she's ever had, all dreamy pleasure.

“Have you missed me, Illya?" Gaby asked, patting the bed beside her. He obediently crawled up next to her, let her push him onto his back.

“Yes,” Illya said, low. She swung a leg over him, sheathed him in one smooth motion.

Her smile was like flint striking sparks. “Good,” she said, and started to move, Illya gripping her hips.

She slipped two fingers into his mouth and he obediently sucked, the the sensation zinging from her fingers to her clit.

She usually can’t come without a hand or a mouth on her clit, but this time, she doesn’t think she’ll need anything but Illya’s cock inside of her and that desperate look on his face.

She continued to ride him, her motions slamming the headboard into the wall, Illya clenching and unclenching his fingers on her hips. She though of the bruises that will show up later today, and clenched hard around him. Illya bucked up, his rhythm growing ragged.

“Not yet,” she whimpered. “I’m so close.”

She braced her hand on his abdomen, snapped her hips down, drove him deeper inside of her. He was taut beneath her, holding back, letting her get her pleasure before he took his.

Her climax was deep and long and Illya held out long enough for her to finish spasming around him before he frantically pumped into her, coming with two final, hard jerks of his hip.

“That was lovely,” Gaby praised. She was panting but she stayed where she was. Illya was softening inside of her and she let herself enjoy the butterfly kisses sensation of it before she clenched around him. She shifted her hips, scraped her nails across Illya’s skin.

“Quite the wake up call, you licking my pussy,” she continued. Illya always got the most delightful expression on his face when she talked filthy. Like he was aroused but also wanted to lecture her. He was growing hard again, his cock still inside her. She could feel the pressure of it, filling her up, and she can't help but rock a little. His hands were running all over her.

“You spoil me,” she continued, circling her clit with two fingers. “What am I going to do without you, hmm? When I have to go back to fucking my own fingers to find release?”

There was little too much truth in that. She's been refusing to think about the greater implications of this mission, the two of them on opposite sides, circling around the same city.

She grimaced to think of having to choose between boorish lovers or the boredom of her own hand, when the USSR finally recalled Illya. The irony of it, that spartan Illya is the luxury that she found herself most addicted to, in the decadent west. His hands on her. His teeth and cock inside her. The way he looked at her. How was she supposed to give that up, hmm? Maybe she won’t let him go. She’ll just keep him here, hers to command. Would you like that, Illya? Would you like to serve at my pleasure? I promise I’ll give you sweeter rewards than Mother Russia ever could….

Illya rolled her on her back, begged so prettily. Gaby offered him her throat at that, and came at the first prick of his teeth, came and came while his cock thrust into her, as he sucked the very blood from her veins.

She come so hard that she stopped every clock in the hotel, that the electricity in the walls spiked and shorted, blacking out three entire blocks.

After, she lay limp in his arms, Illya licking the line of her neck clean with long, slow strokes of his tongue that make her cunt tingle.

“If you keep that up,” she said, hoarse. “I’m going to need you to put your head back between my thighs.

Illya nipped her ear. “As you command,” he said, voice low and serious, and slid back down the bed.


End file.
